There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.

Paul Lehner, Executive Director of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), revisits the idea of natural resources having inherent legal rights. Lehner notes that Christopher Stone’s influential 1972 article “Should Trees Have Standing?” came out one year after Dr. Seuss’s Lorax (now a major motion picture) claimed to“speak for the trees” and wonders if one influenced the other. Quote: “‘Trustee,’ importantly, is very specific term used in law to describe a situation where an entity has a right of its own but cannot speak for itself (e.g. an infant or a disabled person) on behalf of that right. The Lorax, again, seemed to be invoking this principle when he said: “I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” […] So, while the Lorax is a parable (and perhaps now a commercialization of a parable), there is still a profound legal issue beneath the colorful pictures.”

In an editorial, Maryland Governor Martin O’ Malley explains why he signed Maryland’s same-sex marriage bill into law. Quote: “We are a people of many different religions and many different faiths. The only way forward in a pluralistic society of diverse faiths such as ours is to have laws that protect and respect the freedom of all, equally.” O’Malley also stated that “the heart of religious freedom is respect for the freedom of individual conscience,” which includes faiths that want to marry same-sex couples just as it includes those opposed to it.

Politics and a famous bust of Anahit, Armenian goddess of fertility, collide. Quote: “Holding posters of the goddess and chanting “Anahit, come home!” roughly a hundred young people gathered on March 7 in front of the British Embassy to present Ambassador Leach with a petition of 20,000 signatures.” Critics of the Republican Party of Armenia’s recent goddess-populism say it’s a ploy to distract from issues like unemployment.

4 responses to “Unleash the Hounds! (Link Roundup)”

I’m not sure I’d refer to Page’s “Lucifer Rising” soundtrack as “unfinished.” Page actually attached at least one version of his soundtrack to an early cut of the film. That cut was seen by several people, and has been mentioned by numerous Page/Zep biographers. Do I know way too much about Led Zeppelin? Yes.

I challenge Tully or Ben or anyone else to substantiate the claim that modern Pagans hold certain beliefs that are “based on” “old scholarship”, and that these beliefs have been disproved by more recent scholarship.

For his part, in both Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft, Gerald Gardner cites a variety of sources, but he is consistently cautious when it comes to making any historical claims. At least as far as Gardner is concerned, there is no basis whatsoever for the assertion that Wicca “appeared as a movement with a very specific historical claim”, as Hutton claimed in Triumph of the Moon, for Gardner never made any such “specific historical claim”.

Ronald Hutton himself years ago conceded that modern Paganism is in fact closely related to forms of Pagan religion that existed over 18 centuries ago. Therefore, at least according to Hutton, modern Pagans who see our religious traditions as a continuation of “The Old Religion” are not simply clinging to cherished beliefs and “old scholarship”.